First home made DVD with scenarist ! help needed from scenarist experts

[emistral]

I have used so far scenarist mainly to backup some DVDs but recently I have decided to backup some music video clip from vhs tapes
I created a main menu with will link the different video clips (7 all together)
My main structure in scenarist is as follows:
- 1 VTS
- 7 titles within this VTS
- 1 language within the VTS
- the menu is in the language folder which is my root menu
- First PGC linked to the menu in the language folder

when I generated the dvd layout and played with power DVD, it 's fine
but when I play on my standalone, the player keeps searching and nothing is played
I have noticed that in scenarist there is always the video manager folder
In my case it is not connected to anything since I don't know how to connect
When I opened the generated VIDEO_TS file, there is nothing about the PGC.
In the simulation window, it plays fine
So what is wrong ?
if it has to do with the video manager folder, what do I have to do with it ? and how ?

I have more than 300 VHS tapes awaiting for me so as soon as I can successfully made my first home DVD, I can start this huge task of converting to dvd
Thanks for any help

ps: I follozed the guide on the website. this guide was helpful but I am feeling something is missing

[emistral]

something I forgot to mention is that each title within the VTS has 1 PGC which contains the video clip

[Ekin]

hey that's what i am doing too..I am putting music clips on DVD. But I haven't finished my project yet.. I am still struggle with Scenarist. I guess we're on the same road..:) Ohh by the way what version Scenarist do u have and what OS are u running ?? Because I have 2.7 and it seems like it doesn't XP.....

[emistral]

@Ekin: I am using scenarist 2.6 under windows 2000 professional
I was using scenarist 2.6 with XP pro but it was crashing all the time as well as many other softwares
So I switched back to win 2k pro which is more stable

Since nobody answered my question, I figured out how to make it work and basically, according to my understanding and after reading a couple of guides here and there on the net, I figured out that you need to have something in the video manager folder
First add a language in the video manager folder and then in this language folder, add your menus
Or it could be a warning, dolby digital trailer, etc...
Anything basically
I tried to add a PGC with nothing in the video manager folder and create a Precommand to jump to the menu which was in the video title set but it did not work so I assumed that something has to be in the video manager
I moved my menus in the video manager and from there I linked the menu and buttons to the video clips in the video title set 1 (I have only one VTS but many titles in this VTS and each title is only one PGC)
I burnt the dvd and it plays like a charm on a standalone player
Now my next step is animated menus

Hope it helps.
if you need any more help, feel free to ask if I can help you

[mickrick]

Right:

1. You must put a video clip in vts_1, it is the first thing that is played. Try one of those short black clips from a Disney dvd or something.

2. Create a new language in the video manager and create a new pgc in the language. This is where your menu will reside. Create a post link from your first play clip to the menu.

3. Create a menu with 7 buttons and link these buttons to your 7 clips. make sure you create a post link from each clip back to the menu.

Have a look around the site for more Senarist info

[Ekin]

emistral and mickrick thanks for the info really glad that you guides spend the time to explain it to me...alot of other people would just tell me to read and read...i do read but you know when you read something and there's something you don't understand what they say you have to ask right ?? but when I ask most people would just tell me to read...!! god :( ... So from what emistral said, and this is what I understand from it..correct me if i am wrong ok....

1. What do u mean by this "First add a language in the video manager folder and then in this language folder, add your menus
Or it could be a warning, dolby digital trailer, etc..." Or maybe you meant add a Language folder to the Video Manage first and then add my Warnings and trailers in the Language folder which is a sub folder from Video Manager?????

2. If the above idea works why do you have to do this "I moved my menus in the video manager and from there I linked the menu and buttons to the video clips in the video title set 1 (I have only one VTS but many titles in this VTS and each title is only one PGC)"

3. What does the Video Manager and Language Folder do ??????

4. I've read a couple of guides explaining about the "pre and post" but I don't have a clear vision of it.. can you explain it to me please...please use plain english don't go all out on terms. ok...b/c english is my 3 language ok..thanks...

P.S. Yes you all were right about Scenarist, that it's not really stable on XP. I have 2.6 and 2.7. And I found that 2.6 is really stable on 2k pro doesn't crash has much. Ver. 2.7 suppost to run well on XP..well that's what Sonic saids but..somehow it just crash on me all the time.

Ohh yeah have anybody use the AC3 Encoder that came with Scenarist ?? I was wondering if the mode: Karaoke encoding helps the audio quality..????? Well since I am doing Music Videos sooo the best audio quality would be great....

[Ekin]

Hi emistral, I have a question to ask you..I am working on my music video clips and I ran into this problem. So I was wondering if u can help me.

Ok I have 17 music clips to be able to put into Scenarist I would like to have 17 menus. So is this how Scenarist suppost to look like ?? Well that's what I did and I ran into some problems....Ok so here's my Scenrio:

1 Video Manager with no links and nothing in it.

1 First PGC nothing in it, but link to Title 1 which is a sub folder for VTS 1.

17 VTS each contain 1 menu starting from the first VTS 1 to VTS 17.

VTS 1 I created 17 PGC to put my 17 video music clips

So there's my problem...within VTS 1 I can link any buttons that I've created within that VTS 1 to any of the 17 PGCs that have the music clips. But when I am working in VTS 2 and I would like to link a button in VTS 2 to a PGC in VTS 1 ...I can't don that..or how do I do that ???

Another way that I tried was to create a PGC for each of my 17 VTS, and yes I can assign a button in the VTS to it's video clips PGC, But how do I connect the PGC from VTS 1 to the PGC from VTS 2 ??? In other words without connecting the PGCs from all 17 VTS. My DVD would play 1 music clip at a time...and when it finished playing I don't know what happen. :D

So to sum all this up is. How do i connect my buttons in VTS 2 to PGC in VTS 1. Or

How do I connect my 17 PGC together in my 17 VTS so that when play it would have a smooth continously play.... Thank you much for your help...

Really Appreciated....it will make me really happy when I know how to all of those stuff...THANKSSSS

[Ekin]

well I just found out that I can't connect VTS 1 to VTS 2...b/c it can't be done. So there goes one try...So can some body help me here with this subject. 17 separate video clips how do I import it to Scenarist and connect them ?? One way is to have 1 VTS and 17 titles for each clips, because I want 17 menus one for each clips. The problem is how do i connect title 2 buttons to PGC 2 in Tittle 1 ?????

[emistral]

@Ekin:

sorry for the late reply.
well now to answer some of your questions:
1- you need to add/create a language folder in the video manager folder (select it then right-click and add language)
then create a PGC in the language folder you have just created(select the language folder, right-click and add PGC). This is the PGC where you can add either your menu which will be the root menu or any trailer, warning signs, etc....

2- the video manager, according to my knowledge is what the player will read first and will contain the details about the DVD such as how may VTS, menus, what to PGC play first, etc...

3- regarding Pre and Post command: the pre command is a command that is executed before the player plays the PGC. The post command is the command when the player has finished playing the PGC. a typical example would be for instance to set the audio stream to DD 5.1 before entering a PGC in the Pre command and jumping to the menu in the post command. Once you have added a menu and define the buttons, you will see in the scenario editor the PGC for the menu which is expanded and shows the cell, program,etc... These are represented by rectangle and these rectangles have flags on the sides (pre on the left, post on the right, buttons or something like that on the right bottom corner, etc...) If you left click the rectangle which shows a flag called Buttons or something like that, hold the button pressed and drag the mouse over the video clip you want to play (which should be in a PGC somewhere), this will create a link. A window will pop up and ask you what button on the menu will be linked to this video clip. You will select your button and this will create a jump command. You will see that when you drag the mouse, you will have a forbidden sign which turns into a "cmd" logo when you move the mouse over a title,PGC which can be linked
For my experience, I think you can not link a PGC in one VTS to another one in a different VTS directly. But you can link a PGC in one VTS to another VTS be dragging and dropping the link on the title set (folder) and not the PGC itself

-4 regarding the AC3 encoder in scenarist, I have used it a lot. What I did is from my original video clip, I reencoded the video to be PAL compliant then I demux audio and video. I drop the video assset in scenarist and then I started to work on the audio. I used cooledit which is a useful program to process audio. I loaded the demuxed audio file, resampled it to 48khz if needed in order to be DVD compliant and then I separated left and right channels and saved them in 2 files (left and right). Then I mixed both left and right channels, applied a low pass filter with a cut-off frequency of 120hz and an attenuation of -3db (that's the dolby laboratories specs for the LFE channel) and save the resulting file as the LFE channel (Low Effect frequency)file
Then I used the AC3 encoder to encode in 2C dolby digital with LFE enabled and I used the AC3 resulting files as the audio asset for my video clip so that they can be played in DD via my digital optical output. I ended up in a dolby digital 2C track with LFE directed in my case to the subwoofer.You could use also cooledit to filter the audio if there is noise, etc...

-5 Now for your 17 video clips: what I will do is add a language in the video manager and in the language folder, drop your main menu. Your main menu will be a menu which will jump to individual menus for each video clip. THen create 17 VTS and in each VTS you should have by default 1 title already created. Select this title, right-click and then add a language. This will be the title menu. Do that for each of the 17 VTS. In the language folder of each VTS, drop your submenus which will be your title menu. Also in the same VTS add another title and a PGC in this title.Create your video/audio track and drop it in this new PGC. Do that for all of your 17 VTS. Ok now how to link that ?
I would start with linking the submenus to the video clip. As described before, in each VTS locate the rectangle showing the buttons flag in the language folder, left-click and drag the mouse over the video click which is in the other PGC in the same VTS.
If you have chapters, that a little bit longer to explain but let me know if you wish any help.
Do that for all of your 17 VTS.
Now you need to link the main menu in the language folder under the video manager to the different VTS. The same procedure applies. under the language folder in the video manager folder, locate the rectangle which shows the buttons tags, left-click, drag the mouse while holding the button pressed and drop it over the menu in the language folder for each VTS
That's it
also don't forget to create a post command for each video/track which will go back to the submenu
There are more things to do such as choosing the audio stream to play, etc.. but that would be too long to explain in this post. if you wish more help, leave your email address.


My question is why bothering with 17 VTS ? why not putting everything in one VTS ? why do you need 17 menus, one for each video clip ?
Unless you want to set chapter points for each video clip

Anyway hope this post will help you

[mickrick]

Why do you want a seperate menu for each clip?

Anyway, what you need to do, I reckon, is this:

1. Create your first play (vts 1) as discussed earlier.

2. Create seven titles in vts 2. Create a language domain in vts 2 as well. Import your video clips into each title. Create a menu with seven buttons in the vts 2 language domain. Link the seven buttons to the seven clips and creat post links from each clip back to the menu. This CAN be done.

3. Create a language domain in the Video manager. Then create an empty (dummy) pgc in the language domain.

4. Create a post command from your first play video to the dummy pgc in the VM and a post from the dummy pgc to the selection menu in vts 2.

Now author your dvd and play back the authored files in a software player. What should happen is this:

The first play video will play. On ending, it will jump, via the dummy pgc, to the selection menu. Select each clip in turn and when it finishes you will return back to the menu.

Now, a few things to remember. The video clips must ALL reside in the same vts for this to work. The video clips must all be the same format, ie 4:3 or 16:9. You cannot have both in the same vts. They must also be in the same tv format, ie PAL or NTSC. You cannot mix video standards on a disc.

Follow these rules and you should be okay.

[Ekin]

Hi guys...thank you so much for the reply...i am working on it...but I am stuck at a and still trying to figure it out...but I will explain why I want 17 menus for each of my video clips. Ok I am doing motion menus and each menu is a preview of that song. So that's why I need 17 menus. Each menu is going to contain at least 4 buttons up to 17 buttons. But right now 4 buttons is the max. So that's why I ran into that problem of linking the buttons from my menu another. Ok here's an example that I need to do. My menu1 and button 1 is going to be link to my video 1. And button 2 is going to be link to menu2. Button3 is to Menu3, Button4 is to Menu4 ect....Only button 1 is the acutal link to my video clip 1. Menu 2 is going to be the same thing. only button 1 is going to video clip 2...the rest of the buttons is just a link the its' menu. So do u see what I am doing ??? That's why I need help on linking them all together. Scenarist have all this limit on linking them. Like I can't link one VTS to another..or a PGC from VTS 1 to PGC in VTS 2...I have no problem doing this in Maestro. I am good in Maestro. I already tried that idea on Maestro and it work perfectly. I want to learn Scenarist, and that's the hardest part in Scenarist that I don't get. So PLEASE help me out....If anybody need help on Maestro just let me know...

email: SuperLac@hotmail.com

[Ekin]

Great news guys....I FINALLY did it...:D :D I finally made my first DVD with Scenarist!!! Hmmm...spend all night on it though....spent 6 hours last night ...but it's worth it...At least it came out what I wanted..but I am looking for more in Scenarist..I know Scenarist have some other nice little options that I haven't touch yet...but this DVD that I just made is pretty good already...motion menus, auto, and hidden buttons... So doesn any body knows any more little cool stuff that Scenarist can do ?? Like the "Advance Effect" for the buttons...how do those things works ? and what do they do ???

Ohh by the way I have a question. Do Sccenarist have a "timeout" option for a menu ?? Like after a menu is play it'll timeout after 3sec. I know Maestro does....

And in Maestro I can add audio to a still menu. Does Scenarist have that ? and how to do it ??

Well that's it for now...I am sure I'll ask more later on...much thanks to emistral and mickrick for helping me out..thank you much...thank you for taking the time and type the long post concerning to my questions.... :p but I will come back for more...:D

[mickrick]

Boy you don't half ask some questions.

I don't know what "advance" features you're interested in, so we'll leave that for now.

You're next 2 questions are actually related because, in Scenarist, you can have a timeout on a menu. You can also add audio. But to do this you set the menu up as a slideshow. Import your menu pic and select slideshow. Import your audio. You can now set the time you want the menu to play for, usually I would set it for the length of the audio track.

If you want to loop the menu, to play the audio track over and over, create a link command from the post of the menu back onto the menu. Then when the menu time out, say after a minute, it will begin again.

i myself have just found how to autoselect a button on a menu after clicking another button. I was creating an audio selection screen and after selecting DD5.1 or dts sound, I wanted play movie to highlight. And it does. :D

Oh, and keep reading those guides.;)

[emistral]

@Ekin: well done. It takes a while to use scenarist since the manual is useless but with the help of all the nice people on this forum, you manage to do everything

@Mickrick:
How did you manage to highlight a button after pressing another one? I have the same problem. I have a menu to select the audio format which is either DD5.1 or mpeg and once I have selected the right format, I'd like to jump or highlight the play movie button ?

[dan]

To automatically highlight a button after pressing another, do whatever command you want for the button you're pressing, then link that to a 'jump to cell' command [in this case, it should be the same object that the original button is in from what I understand about your layout]...in that dialog box, tell it which button to highlight.

The following describes how to fix the most common problem with doing this [the menu highlighting button 1 no matter what...]

In the properties for the "highlight play" [select the highlight layer in track mode, and look at the middle, bottom window], be sure that "Force Selected Button" is set to "Nonexistent." This will allow button 4 [or any button] to be selected automatically after the cell restarts after the button press, as, by default, it's usually set to 1, which causes it to start with button 1 highlighted, no questions asked.

Thanks,
Dan

[coona]

Hello boys,

maybe stupid question but i have to ask :D How can I force my standalone player to jump from the end of one PGC to beginning of another PGC in the same VTS automatically. My problem is that I have one VTS with two PGCs. And all I need is to continue play on PGC 2 after PGC 1 has been played. Is it possible to edit only video_ts.ifo or is it necessary to reauthor the whole project???

Thanx for any help.

[Ekin]

coona: well I was at that stage before just like you...It's easy to solve your problem. The pre and next command will do it..or the next pgc link is ok too. Read the manual that came with Scenarist. It'll tell you how to do it...that's where I learn how to do it. That's it....but I solved your problem but I can't solve mine.....;) I am stuck at the part where I link PGC from VTS1 to PGC in VTS2 ......